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28 professionals in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, were last Friday inducted as members of the Chartered Institute of Loan & Risk Management of Nigeria (CILRM).
The membership categories ranged from Honorary Fellows, Distinguished Fellows, Fellow Members, Senior Members, Full Members, Associate Members and Graduate Members.
President/Chairman of the governing council, Dr. (Mrs) Harriet Nkechi Akubuiro, assured inductees that the institute is the sole professional body authorized by the Federal Government to regulate and control the practice of loan and risk management in Nigeria.
CILRM, she said, was established primarily to fill the void in the specialist professional discipline of loan and risk management practice, thus “complementing the contributions of individuals, academia and other professional bodies” in the area.
Addressing the press earlier, alongside the institute’s registrar general, Dr. Innocent Uzombah, zonal director (South South), Dr. Barile Kursi and a distinguished fellow of the institute, Prof. Lawyer Obama, Akubuiro noted that “the highly competitive global economic scenario, with its demand for top flight efficiency and effectiveness, have made it essential for specialist professional focus on loan and risk management.”
“The word ‘risk’ has been so minimized in the minds of especially us in Nigeria. It is bigger than what we call it. Risk has to do with every type of event, every future event that can occur, and which can stop us from achieving what we have desired to achieve.
“Today, risk has moved away from the risk of giving loan and not getting it paid back. It has moved into oil & gas. We have oil & gas risk, information and technology risk, environmental risks, political risk, terrorism as a risk, business risk.
“Risk is increasing in every area and sphere of life. We in this area of the world can no longer continue to remain ignorant. The world is planning their risks and they are moving fast in the area of risk management. We want to join them to make sure that we reduce our own challenges,” she said.
As part of the vision of ushering a new era of professionalism in risk management, CILRM has extended its scope beyond Nigeria, and to include Africa, which has led it to establishing partnership with sister institutes in Ghana, Cameroun, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
Akubuiro further said that “another milestone achievement by the institute is the inclusion of risk management as a program of study in all the Nigerian Universities, starting from postgraduate level. As part of diversification effort of the institute, the governing council requested an approval in respect of the above and same was granted by the immediate past executive secretary, Professor Julius Okojie and the management of the National Universities Commission (NUC).
“The courses to be included in the curriculum in all Nigerian universities are: Business Risk Management, Environmental Risk Management, Information Technology and Cyber Risk Management, Engineering Risk Management, Political and Governance Risk Management, Oil and Gas Risk Management, Health and Safety/Disaster Risk Management, Securities and Stock Market Risk Management, and Security Risk Management,” she said.
Speaking on security risks, distinguished fellow of the institute, Prof. Lawyer Obama, noted that the Nigerian government has not taken full cognizance of the security risks and implications posed by issues such as terrorism, herdsmen/farmers clash, ethnic agitations, high crime rate etc
He said government is not doing enough to contain these security risks and called for a re-think on ways of mitigating risks associated with these issues.